Richard Dawkins at the “Protest The Pope” rally, 18th September 2010. London.
“I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.” Bertrand Russell
Rare Japanese documentary footage of The Dictators, Suicide, Bad Brains, Mink DeVille, James Chance, The Ramones and The Dead Boys at CBGB, 1978. The Plasmatics at Cbs 1980 from NYC cable show ‘Innertube’. Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers, also from Innertube, 1979, at Max’s.
Sinead has taken alot of shit over the years for being fearlessly outspoken. Her uncompromising stance on Catholicism, the Pope and the Priesthood pretty much ruined her career as an artist. I respect and admire her. Were she not a woman, would she have been treated so brutally by the press? Tell it like it is, sister!
Found randomly on YouTube: An actual television advertisement for David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs album circa 1974. I wonder if this ever aired anywhere?
Of the Tron/Lebowski mashups on the interweb, this new one by elektronique is the best…so far. Skillfully done and quite amusing.
Here’s an excellent short rhythm session featuring some of the best British drummers of the ‘60s.
It’s a scene from Gonks Go Beat, a dorky British sci-fi/musical fantasy film from 1965, featuring furry little puppets called Gonks and directed by Robert Hartford-Davis. It basically retells Romeo & Juliet on an Earth that’s been split into the freak-populated Beatland and the more straightlaced Ballad Isle. Shot on chintzy cardboard sets, the film is mostly a showcase for the all-star R&B band the Graham Bond Organisation, which featured the undersung keyboardist/singer Bond backed by a pre-Cream Ginger Baker on drums and Jack Bruce on bass, along with guitarist John McLaughlin.
Here Baker joins Bobby Graham, Alan Grindley, John Kearns, Bobby Richards, Ronnie Verrell, Andy White, Ronnie Stephenson and Arthur Mullard to pound out the jams.
YouTube ‘60s obsessive Alquit4 notes:
The late Bobby Graham was a top English session man. He played on thousands of records including early Kinks and Pretty Things hits. The late Ronnie Verrell was the drummer for Animal in the Muppets.
The late Ronnie Stephenson played with many top jazz stars and was also did many pop sessions.
Andy White is best known for playing on the Beatles first single ‘Love Me Do’.
Get: Gonks Go Beat (1965) [DVD]
A Day In The Afterlife: BBC documentary on Philip K. Dick in its entirety (57 minutes).
A Day in the Afterlife focuses on the man himself, in all his crazy, drug-addled, paranoid glory. The mind behind some of my favorite books is fascinated by the constant bombardment of advertising, the effects of giant media conglomerates, and the overwhelming feeling that the world in which we live exists only in the glowing vacuum tubes of countless television sets. It is an ode to one of the most creative minds in science fiction, and another step in the crusade for a wider recognition of his accomplishments.” Ross Rosenberg
One of my favorite genres of exploitation films is Filipino action flicks. I’m thrilled that Mark Hartley who directed the fabulous documentary Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild Untold Story Of Ozploitation has a brand new film screening at this years Fantastic Fest (which DM will be covering) called Machete Maidens Unleashed, an overview of legendary Z-movies from the Philippines.
During the classic grindhouse era of the ‘60s and ‘70s independent producers began turning out more and more exploitation features for less and less money. As the cycle wore on, there was a demand from audiences for more variety in settings and situations, and a demand from producers for lower budgets. Since it already had an infrastructure conducive to the making of inexpensive films, the Philippines fit the bill to a T. Labor was cheap, there were skilled technicians and equipment and, possibly best of all, the military dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos looked upon the enterprise favorably, contributing everything from tactical assistance to military firepower. One interviewee refers to the Philippines at this time as the “wild east”, and that assessment certainly seems apt as we hear story after story of gunfights in hotel lobbies, rats the size of poodles and the most insane, irresponsible stunts imaginable. As shocking and lurid as many of the women-in-prison, jungle action, mad scientist and martial arts movies made in the Philippines were, the back stories may actually surpass the films in their shocking details. But when the films being discussed and shown in Hartley’s trademark montage style are as wildly entertaining as For Your Height Only, Mad Doctors Of Blood Island, The Twilight People, The Big Doll House and TNT Jackson, it may be a tie.
I will be interviewing Mark Hartley during Fantastic Fest (Sept. 23-30), so stay tuned.
Here’s a clip from the classic For Your Height Only (aka For Y’ur Height Only) featuring the 3 foot tall martial arts master Weng Weng, the Filipino James Bond.
One hit wonders in Germany, Adam and Eve do their best Sonny and Cher in this video from 1967, “They Can Look At Us And Laugh”. The duo were Eva Bartova from Prague and American expatriate John Christian Dee.
There’s not much information on John Christian Dee that I can find. He was born in Buffalo, NY. He moved to London in his twenties. He wrote some songs for The Pretty Things and The Pink Fairies. He later married the infamous Janie Jones and together they ran a prostitution ring in London. He and Jones were busted and sentenced to prison but he fled the country. In 1975 he was jailed in Germany for stabbing his girlfriend. He escaped and disappeared somewhere in France. John Christian Dee died in London in 2004.
After Dee split for England, Eva continued to record with a new Adam, Hartmut Schairer, but the results weren’t nearly as interesting as her brief career with Dee. She died in 1989.
The video is a real oddity. The Sonny and Cher replication is pretty amazing. The song sounds like something Sonny would write, with its depiction of hippies as proud loners being ostracized and ridiculed by straight society. The first Sonny and Cher album was titled Look At Us - not much different from the title of this song. Dee has Sonny’s vocal mannerisms down pat: stretching vowels with a wiseass snarl.
Anyway, here’s Adam and Eve. If you don’t dig the song, you’ll love the wigs and bell bottoms. If you want more, buy the CD here.
More Adam and Eve after the jump…
